Quote:
Originally Posted by trainedobserver
Isn't a more fundamentally necessary program called "empathy"? If we foster empathy for our fellow human beings (and other life as well) then compassion, tolerance, and wisdom (the intelligent use of information) follow naturally don't they? A non-evidence based belief (faith) in the supernatural isn't really necessary for ethical, moral, or "good" behavior in human beings.
All that is really necessary is a recognition of the commonality of experience that human beings share. We all feel pain and pleasure, we all know what it is to be a human being, we just have to recognize that our neighbor is the same as we are in these respects no matter what differences may or may not exist.
All we have is each other as the claims and promises of the supernatural are hollow constructs of the human imagination that repeatedly and consistently fail to live up to the aspirations of those who would evoke them. Or so it has been my experience.
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Agree
However it's fascinating to look back at our own evolutionary anthropology and clearly see that a big part of our human experience is done within our preference to groupings of like-mindedness - and the structures of those groups are mostly centered around "intentionalty". We are wired as an observer to question the intentionality of everything - for example the wind blows and we see the tree's moving - why? There must be something greater - an unseen force - doing this for a reason? So we are free to rationalize and prospect answers to these questions, within our uniquely human skill, to ponder within our imagination the possibilities.
More evolution means more imaginative complexity, and with that comes growth, wisdom and the residual phenomena. I feel they play off each other: the sci-fi - supernatural - spiritual stuff puts things out there as emotionally linking concepts across our common sentience - and the science - wisdom - reality is guided by finding the answers.
What is compelling today is that in this process (or whatever process it actually is) within our "groups" we have taught ourselves that the "groups" core beliefs = power over other groups, defended by righteousness - a basic instinctual pattern of survival - which ultimately blinds us to our common connection.
Yet there are some of us (actually many of us - more than will admit) that can see past all of this in the mix as well. Will be interesting to see how it all plays out
I have this thing bouncing around in my head that goes something like this:
We thought: survival of the fittest in the struggle for life
We are realizing: survival of those that cooperate in the community of life